Armand-Jean du Plessis, duc de Richelieu

Richelieu is a redirect to this article. Further meanings are listed under Richelieu (disambiguation) .

Cardinal Richelieu (painted by Philippe de Champaigne , around 1633, National Gallery, London).

Richelieu's signature:

coat of arms

Armand-Jean du Plessis, 1st Duc de Richelieu (born September 9, 1585 in Paris ; † December 4, 1642 ibid), Cardinal Richelieu for short , was a French aristocrat , church prince and statesman . From 1624 until his death he was under King Louis XIII. as the first minister, the decisive political figure in French politics.

The main domestic political goal of Richelieu was the strengthening of the royal central power in the sense of an absolutism . In addition he fought domestically the special rights of the French Protestants ( Huguenots ). In 1629, in the edict of grace of Alès , he allowed them their religious freedom, but took away their military security posts, which eliminated the Huguenots as a political power factor. During the Thirty Years' War , Richelieu entered into an alliance with Protestant Sweden to break the (Catholic) Habsburg supremacy in Europe. For the same reasons he also supported the uprising in Catalonia and Portugal against the central Habsburg power in Madrid .

Origin and family

The father: François du Plessis de Richelieu

Armand du Plessis was the fifth of six children and the youngest of three sons. His father, François du Plessis de Richelieu (1548–1590) from the Le Plessis-Richelieu family from Poitou was a military man and chief of the Guard (grand prévôt) ; his mother Susanne de La Porte (* 1550) was the daughter of a lawyer. His older brother was the Carthusian monk , Archbishop of Lyon and Cardinal Alphonse-Louis du Plessis de Richelieu . King Henry III rewarded his father for military service with the post of Bishop of Luçon and allowed him to transfer it to a son.

Studied in Paris

When Richelieu was six years old, his father died in the war of the Catholic League against the Huguenot king Henry IV. At nine he attended the Collège de Navarre in Paris. After graduation, he began military training and switched to theology when his older brother, Alphonse-Louis du Plessis de Richelieu (1582–1653) did not take up the office of inheritance and did not join the Carthusian order .

Church career

Consecration as Bishop of Luçon

At the age of 21 he was ordained Bishop of Luçon by Pope Paul V in April 1607 , after which he received his doctorate in Paris. In 1608 he returned and consolidated his diocese after the turmoil of the Huguenot Wars (1562-1598). He implemented the resolutions of the Council of Trent .

Friendship with "Père Joseph"

At this time, Richelieu made friends with the Capuchin Père Joseph , who became one of his closest confidants. Père Joseph received the nickname "The Gray Eminence " (l'Éminence gris ) because of the gray color of his habit and his proximity to the cardinal, whom he addressed with Eminence (éminence ). Since Père Joseph had extensive political and military strategic knowledge and ambitions, he was used by Richelieu to represent the interests of France for diplomatic negotiations, inquiries and consultations with enemies (e.g. at the Reichstag in Regensburg) and allies abroad.

Richelieu developed political interests on the occasion of the deliberations in Loudun to settle a noble uprising, in which Père Joseph acted as confidante of the Queen Mother Maria de 'Medici and the papal envoy.

Père Joseph became of great importance for Richelieu and France when, in a long conversation, he succeeded in relieving the cardinal of his horrors and reassuring him after his mental and physical collapse in the face of the impending attack by imperial troops on unprotected Paris, that he succeeded in raising a people's army to protect Paris.

Representative of the clergy and diplomat

At the general assembly of 1614 he represented the clergy of Poitou. Maria de 'Medici, queen mother and regent for her son Louis XIII, brought him to the royal court in 1616. In the same year he became State Secretary for Foreign Policy and War. The king murdered the first minister, Concino Concini , and sent his mother into exile . Richelieu lost his office and was exiled to Avignon . In 1619 the king brought him back to court to negotiate with his mother, who in the meantime had led a revolt with her second son Gaston d'Orléans . Richelieu managed to reconcile.

In 1622 he was appointed cardinal , from 1627 he was coadjutor and from 1635 abbot of Cluny and Cîteaux and Prémontré .

Political activity

Louis XIII with Richelieu

On December 15, 1621, the first minister and favorite of Ludwig, Charles de Luynes, died . The king abolished the office of favorite and connétable .

On November 3, 1622 Richelieu was at the instigation of Maria de 'Medici by Pope Gregory XV. appointed cardinal. From April 29, 1624 he was a member of the Council of State as a royal advisor . and became Prime Minister on August 13, 1624.

In 1629 he became lieutenant general of the kingdom . He reformed the administration, disempowered the nobility (see: Journée des Dupes ), had Père Joseph set up a secret police and fought the Huguenots . He favored Théophraste Renaudot , who from May 12th 1631 published the weekly newspaper La Gazette . In addition to news from the court, laws and edicts, it also published ordinances and reports from the king and richelieu, which influenced the public opinion of the military, court clerics, scholars and officials.

Other favorites were the Abbot of Saint-Germain-des-Prés Mathieu de Morgues , the canon of the parish church of St-Germain-l'Auxerrois François Dorval-Langlois de Fancan , Paul Hay du Châtelet , one of the founders of the Académie française , Jean Sirmond , Jacques Pelltier and Jérémie Ferrier, who converted from Calvinism to Catholicism, and the historians Pierre Dupuy and Théodore Godefroy .

In terms of colonial policy, Richelieu ensured that the state finances were relieved from 1627 without giving up the colonization of North America. A private trading company, the Compagnie de la Nouvelle France, recruited settlers and obtained the trade monopoly between Florida and the arctic regions of Canada. In 1640, the French feudal system was transferred to North America and extensive manors emerged. The society was dissolved in 1663 when the Huguenot Wars reached Canada and the country became a colony.

Fight against the Huguenots

Henri-Paul Motte : Cardinal Richelieu at the siege of La Rochelle, detail from a painting from 1881

The Huguenots formed in France Louis XIII. a state within a state. Through the guarantees of the Edict of Nantes , they had cities and fortifications under their own administration ("military security posts") and substantial subsidies from their natural ally England.

After the assassination of Henry IV , there were repeated unrest and military conflicts. After the fall of La Rochelle after a year-long siege in 1628, Richelieu left the Huguenots in the edict of grace of Alès of 1629 their freedom of worship, but took away their military privileges.

Role in the Thirty Years War

1618-1635

Cardinal Richelieu on a 1631 bronze medal by Warin . Front.

Cardinal Richelieu, 1631 bronze medal from Warin. Back.

To break the Spanish supremacy in Europe, Richelieu used the costly involvement of the Spanish monarchy in the Thirty Years 'War (1618-1648) and their decades-long struggle in the Eighty Years' War - restarted after a 12-year armistice in 1621 - against the United Netherlands, that of Spain fallen provinces in the northern Netherlands. Richelieu initially planned - still under the direction of La Vieuville (summer 1624) - to use the mercenary leader Ernst von Mansfeld (agreements of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, September 1624). A subsidy alliance had just come about with the States General of the United Netherlands (Treaty of Compiègne, June 1624), which King James I (Stuart) of England and Scotland joined shortly afterwards . In this way, Richelieu linked the League of Lyon (February 1623, renewed 1624), an alliance of Catholic powers (France, Venice , Savoy ), with the evangelical powers mentioned (Netherlands, England) against the members and allies of the House of Habsburgs of Austria, but above all the Spanish line. By them he saw France encircled and threatened from north, east and south. At the same time, Richelieu continued diplomatic efforts to separate Bavaria (and thus the Catholic League ) from the Habsburg emperor, and supported the Protestant principalities on the eastern border of France in order to bind the forces of the Habsburgs in the war against these principalities. Therefore, in the Treaty of Bärwalde (1631) , he assured the Swedish King Gustav II Adolf a support of 1 million livres (pounds) per year for warfare. This enabled the Swedish king to advance with his troops to southern Germany.

1635-1638

After the death of the King of Sweden and after the total defeat of the Swedish troops in the Battle of Nördlingen , Richelieu saw himself forced in 1635 to wage war against the Pope and against the Catholic France under the leadership of a Catholic bishop with its own troops at the side of Protestant Sweden Catholic Habsburg Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation . On May 19, 1635, war was declared on Spain and only a little later on September 18, war was declared on the Habsburg Emperor Ferdinand II. Since France was militarily weak at that time and, with the exception of Turenne and La Valette, had no war-experienced commanders, it closed Richelieu signed the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye on October 27, 1635 with Bernhard von Sachsen-Weimar , the experienced Swedish military leader . In the treaty, France undertook to provide Bernhard with 4 million livres of annual subsidies for the duration of the war to finance an army. The money was well invested, because the Weimaraner army, which in the following year 1636 acted successfully against the imperial army under the experienced general Matthias Gallas in Lorraine and Alsace , contributed to the fact that the Spanish, Austrian and Bavarian armies had to break off their planned attack on Paris in October 1636 because the advance of the imperial army under Gallas, which was expected from the south and considered necessary for the successful attack on Paris, did not take place. The Imperial Army had almost disbanded in the course of the year because Gallas had found his master in Bernhard von Sachsen-Weimar . Bernhard had avoided a major battle and instead used the tactics of stalling, evading, starving and unexpected attacks to wear down the imperial army so much that it was decimated by epidemics and a lack of food and was no longer operational.

Although the Imperial Army expected from the south did not arrive before Paris, a dangerous situation for the city of Paris developed after the French border fortress of Corbie , only about 100 km north of Paris, was conquered by Spanish troops on August 7, 1636. An advance by Bavarian cavalry had even reached the town of Pontoise , only 30 km away . Cardinal Richelieu's darkest days began, as he was identified by the Parisians as the culprit for the situation. According to the people, he had weakened the walls of the city of Paris by demolishing them and plundered the treasury in order to have his palace built. When Richelieu was described by the masses in the streets as a monster in the cardinal's purple and death threats arose against him, Richelieu fell into a stupor , a kind of insanity with fits of tears, gave contradicting orders and had fits of rage. Only long conversations with his confessor, the Capuchin Père Joseph, could free him from this condition . From the beginning of Richelieu's rule, Père Joseph had great political influence on him and was even installed as his political envoy to the enemy. After the talks and after Père Joseph's military analyzes, however, Richelieu looked like a changed man. With the support of King Ludwig XIII. Richelieu managed within a few days to raise a popular army of 15,000 to 20,000 men through recruitment and volunteers. With the help of these volunteer associations, the regular French regiments were able to successfully besiege the fortress of Corbie, which was occupied by the Spanish, and recapture it in November 1636. The enemy armies were withdrawn from August 1636, also because the Swedish army was advancing in the won battle at Wittstock.

After 1638

In 1640, towards the end of the Thirty Years War, Richelieu tried to weaken the Iberian line of the Habsburgs by attacking the Spanish Pyrenees fortress of Perpignan . For this reason, he also supported rebels in Catalonia and Portugal, who revolted against the central power in Madrid by providing money, weapons and their own soldiers there. The wife of King Louis XIII, Anna of Austria , was very dismayed by this strategy.

The cardinal, who was already in very poor health, worked from 1642 for those mediators who would one day represent France in the peace negotiations. His vision was a reorganized Europe under the hegemony of the French crown instead of the universal Habsburg monarchy.

Conspiracies against Richelieu

In choosing his methods, Richelieu followed the principle "The end justifies the means". Political opponents were ruthlessly eliminated, alliances entered into based on expediency. His alliances with various Protestant princely houses caused outrage among the nobility and the Catholic Church. His policy met with great opposition in his own country. There were numerous conspiracies and assassinations, which he was able to uncover in good time thanks to his espionage network.

Chalais

In 1626, when he and the Queen Mother tried to force the king's brother, Gaston d'Orleans , into a marriage with Marie de Bourbon-Montpensier, the first high-ranking murder plot arose. Some high nobles, including the Duchess of Chevreuse and her lover, the Comte de Chalais , supported d'Orleans' resistance and planned Richelieu's death. The plot was uncovered, Chalais executed, Mme. De Chevreuse banished to Poitou . D'Orleans was pardoned but had to marry the unloved woman. This began a lifelong enmity between the King's brother and the First Minister.

Montrésor

Ten years later, another murder plot failed. The Count of Montrésor , favorite Gaston d'Orleans ', and the Count of Soissons , Louis de Bourbon , general and partisan of the Maria de' Medici, were involved. Richelieu was to be killed in the Amiens encampment in 1636 while retreating after a campaign against Spanish troops in Picardy . Louis de Bourbon then fled to Sedan in 1637 and gathered other like-minded people around him. In 1641 he returned to France with a Habsburg army. He defeated the French Maréchal de Châtillon in the battle of La Marfée on July 6, 1641, but died at the moment of the triumph under unexplained circumstances.

Cinq Mars

Philippe de Champaigne : Cardinal Richelieu (1636)

The last conspiracy against Richelieu came from the royal favorite, the Marquis de Cinq-Mars , in 1642 . The marquis was the son of a close friend of Richelieu's and originally his protégé. Richelieu brought him to court in the hope of being able to increase his influence on Ludwig through the young man. Cinq-Mars really won the king's favor, became his favorite and showered with offices, but developed his own political ambition. Richelieu tried to curtail the influence of Cinq-Mars, whereupon that with other insurgents, including again d'Orleans, planned to open the borders to the Spaniards in order to overthrow Richelieu. A secret treaty for Spanish support for the rebellion fell into Richelieu's hands so that Cinq-Mars could try. Cinq-Mars was executed in Lyon on October 12, 1642 .

Establishment of a military bodyguard

Guardsman Cardinal Richelieu with red tunics at the capitulation of Montauban in 1629, detail of a painting from the battle gallery of the Château de Richelieu (mid-1630s to 1640)

After the conspiracy of 1626, Louis XIII granted. his first minister had his own personal guard that same year, which in the course of a few years swelled to a target of 400 men - not counting the officers.

Initially, 50 musketeers on horseback were approved, plus a smaller, unspecified number of officers whom the cardinal maintained at his own expense. However, this company was not referred to as a musketeer, but simply as a "garden" ( des gardes ) or "guard of his eminence on horseback" ( la garde à cheval de Son Eminence ).

During 1631 the king allowed his chief advisor to expand his guard. The permanent guards on horseback, made up mainly of nobles, now comprised 120 Chevaulegers , and a 100-man company of gendarmes was permitted. In 1634 an initially 100 men, then 200 men company of musketeers was added on foot. The "Musketeers of the Guard of His Eminence" were of non-noble origin. If possible, they were recruited from the Régiment des Gardes françaises and served for at least three years. The simple guards on horseback were paid like ensigns of the army, the musketeers of the guards on foot like sergeants .

The closest bodyguards were the "Guards" or Chevaulegers: 60 men each lodged in the Cardinal Palace and provided the inner guards there - discreetly armed with a pistol hidden under the tunic, the muskets deposited in the guard room in the event of an alarm. When the cardinal left the palace, the guards on horseback provided the closest escort. Guarding the outer gates was the responsibility of the Musketeers on foot.

The gendarmes were not on watch, but seem to have been quickly enlisted in the French army, as well as a regiment of dragons set up by Richelieu in 1635, the later Régiment du Roi cavalerie with 500 men and a regiment on foot of 1,800. In military emergencies, the First Minister also sent his personal escort into the field. Including the guards, the cardinal paid a total of 2,700 men.

With Richelieu's death in 1642, the "Guards" and "Musketeers of the Guard of His Eminence" were disbanded: the relatives were either accepted into the royal guard or retired.

The Guard on horseback was widely recognizable by their red, white (or yellow?) Bordered tunic ( casaque ), each with a plain equilateral white cross on chest, back and both sides. The musketeers on foot and the other formations he set up did not have uniform clothing, as is typical of the time.

Patron of the arts

Philippe de Champaigne - Cardinal de Richelieu (1637)

Richelieu was a man with a wide range of interests who, in addition to his affairs of state, also had a great interest in art and supported numerous artists with the wealth he had gained in office.

He paid the architect Jacques Le Mercier , who attracted his attention when the Louvre was enlarged. Le Mercier designed the chapel of the Sorbonne , in which Richelieu was buried according to his last will, and the Cardinal Palace , which later became the Palais Royal in Paris. In addition to the cardinal's art collection, the palace also housed a theater, which was the most modern and beautiful stage in Paris at the time. It opened in 1641 with a performance by Jean Desmarets Mirame .

He entrusted the decoration of the Palais Royal to the first court painter of Louis XIII, Simon Vouet . The young Philippe de Champaigne was also one of his protégés . The picture on the right is a section from a triple portrait that Champaigne made around 1640. It is now on display in the National Gallery in London .

But the cardinal's greatest artistic interest was in literature . So he took up the idea of ​​a society for the care of the French language and culture and in 1635 turned the informal circle around Valentin Conrart, who had been dedicated to this task since 1630, into an official institution, the Académie Française . He sponsored numerous young dramatists, including the highly gifted young Pierre Corneille . In the dispute over Corneille's celebrated tragic comedy " Le Cid ", the triumph of which attracted numerous envious people, he turned against his protégé. On his behalf, the Académie Française prepared an expert opinion, which turned out negative and Richelieu served as an excuse to prohibit further public performances of the piece. His motives for doing this are unclear - envy may have played a role, as did the fact that morale at the Cid was not conducive to his efforts to contain duels.

death

Richelieu died on December 4, 1642. From his earliest youth, of extremely fragile health, he had not spared himself in his life. Shortly before his death, he summarized the principles of his politics in a comprehensive memorandum, which he determined as a political testament for his king. Lying on his death bed since November 18, he put his political estate in order and conferred with the king two days before his death, already marked by death. It is said that he recommended Mazarin to the king as his successor; but this cannot be proven. Richelieu was buried in the Sorbonne Chapel at his own request.

At his death, Richelieu owned 20 million livre , which made him one of the richest people in Europe.

François Girardon : Statues at the cardinal's tomb in the Chapelle de la Sorbonne in Paris (1642)

The battleship Richelieu and the Richelieu ship class were named after him in 1939 .

Excerpt from Richelieu's political testament

"The natural insight lets everyone recognize that, since man is created gifted with reason, he may only do everything out of reason, because otherwise he would act against his nature and consequently against the basis of his own being [...] If man in is outstandingly endowed with reason, he must also allow reason to rule in an outstanding manner. But this not only requires that he do nothing without her, it also obliges him to do more, namely that all who are under his rule worship her and follow her faithfully. […] The practice of this rule is all the easier since love is the most powerful motive for obedience and since it is impossible for subjects not to love a prince if they know that reason is the guide. Authority compels, but reason persuades obedience, and it is much more correct to lead people to it by means that imperceptibly gain their will than by means that often only move to act through compulsion. "

“The public interests must be the sole aim of the prince and his ministers, or at least both of them must be so concerned that they take precedence over all special interests. It is impossible to comprehend the good that a prince and those he uses in his affairs can do if they scrupulously follow this principle, and one cannot imagine the evil that will happen to a state if one does Prefers special interests to public interests, and when the latter are determined by the former. "

The diamond needle affair

The name Richelieus is known to many from the novel The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas the Elder. Ä. known. There the cardinal is the dark opponent of the heroes who envy the English Prime Minister Buckingham the love of Anna of Austria (the Queen). Anna makes the mistake of giving the Duke of Buckingham a pledge of love at a secret rendezvous, a box with 12 diamond needles that she herself had received from the King as a gift. When Richelieu found out about this, he had Buckingham steal two of these needles through an agent. Then he moves the king to ask the queen to come to a ball where she should wear these diamond pins. With the help of his friends, D'Artagnan has to get the needles back from England before the ball so that Richelieu cannot publicly expose the Queen.

The basic theme of this plot, the diamond needle affair, is not found in Dumas first. The poet La Rochefoucauld already reported this episode in his memoir. La Rochefoucauld was both a close confidante of the Queen and editor of her memoirs and the lover of her long-time bosom friend, Madame de Chevreuse . It is therefore quite possible that the affair actually happened.

reception

Choice of fiction

• Tanja Kinkel: The shadows of La Rochelle. Munich 1996, ISBN 3-7645-0112-X (historical novel)

Film adaptations

• Cardinal Richelieu (1935). Played by George Arliss
• The three musketeers (1948). Played by Vincent Price
• The three musketeers (1973). Played by Charlton Heston
• TV series Richelieu (TV series) (1977). Played by Pierre Vernier
• The three musketeers (1993). Played by Tim Curry
• The three musketeers (2011). Played by Christoph Waltz
• TV series The Musketeers (2014). Played by Peter Capaldi

Source editions: Richelieu's works

• Les Papiers de Richelieu. Politique Intérieure Section. Correspondance et papiers d'État, ed. v. Pierre Grillon, 6 vols. [1624-1631], Paris 1975-1985; Politique Extérieure Section. Empire allemand [1616–1642], ed. Adolf Wild / Anja V. Hartmann: 3 volumes, Paris 1982–1999 (Editions)
• Armand du Plessis: Testament politique de Richelieu. Edited by Françoise Hildesheimer, Société de l'histoire de France, Librairie H. Champion, Paris 1995, ISBN 2-85203-438-7 .
• Armand du Plessis: Emblema animae or morrall discourses. Translated by IM, Printet by N. Okes, London 1635.
• Armand du Plessis: The principall points of the faith of the Catholic Church defended. Translated by MC, Paris 1635.

literature

German-language specialist literature

• Carl Jacob Burckhardt : Richelieu, The rise to power - Assertion of power and the cold war - Great power politics and death of the cardinal. 18th edition. Edition in one volume. Callwey Verlag, Munich 1984, ISBN 3-7667-0727-2 .
• Fritz Dickmann: Legal Thought and Power Politics at Richelieu. Studies on Newly Discovered Sources. In: HZ 196 (1963) pp. 265-319.
• Philippe Erlanger: Richelieu The ambitious, the revolutionary, the dictator. Translated from the French by Ulla Leippe. Frankfurt / M. 1975, ISBN 3-7973-0273-8 .
• Philippe Erlanger: Richelieu. Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 1980, ISBN 3-404-61054-7 .
• Bruno Gloger: Richelieu, the career of a state chancellor. Biography. Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-355-00820-6 .
• Markus Kerber: Richelieu or the power of the anteroom. verbum printing and publishing company, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-928918-23-0 .
• Klaus Malettke : Richelieu. A life in the service of the king and France. Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2018, ISBN 978-3506777355 . [comprehensive and current, currently authoritative work in German]
• Jean Meyer: France in the Age of Absolutism, 1515–1789. (History of France 3) Translated from the French by Friedrich Weinert. Stuttgart 1990, ISBN 3-421-06453-9 .
• Uwe Schultz: Richelieu. The king's cardinal. CH Beck, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-406-58358-2 .
• Klaus-Gunther Wesseling :  Armand-Jean du Plessis, duc de Richelieu. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 8, Bautz, Herzberg 1994, ISBN 3-88309-053-0 , Sp. 226-235.
• Jörg Wollenberg : Richelieu State reason and church interest. To legitimize the politics of the cardinal premier. Bielefeld 1977, ISBN 3-88024-020-5 .

French specialist literature

• François Bluche: Richelieu. Perrin, 2003, ISBN 2-262-01718-2 (from the Richelieu specialist)
• Michel Carmorna: La France de Richelieu. Fayard, Paris 1984
• Michel Carmorna: Richelieu. Fayard, Paris 1983
• Pierre Castagnos: Richelieu face à la mer. Éditions Ouest-France, Paris 1989, ISBN 2-7373-0257-9 .
• Georges Couton: Richelieu et le théâtre. Presses Universitaires de Lyon, Lyon 1986
• Françoise Hildesheimer: Richelieu. Une certaine idée d'Etat. Paris 1985
• Françoise Hildesheimer: Relectures de Richelieu. Paris 2000
• Richard Levesque, Louis Châtellier et al. a .: De Richelieu à Grignion de Montfort - la Vendée au XVIIe siècle. Somogy Ed. d'Art, Paris 2005, ISBN 2-85056-863-5 .
• Roland Mousnier (éd.): Richelieu et la culture, Paris 1987
• Roland Mousnier: L'Homme rouge ou La vie du Cardinal de Richelieu (1585–1642). Robert Lafont / Bouquins, Paris 1992, ISBN 2-221-06592-1

Newer English works

• Joseph Bergin : The Rise of Richelieu. New Haven / London 1991, ISBN 0-300-04992-7 .
• Joseph Bergin: Richelieu and his age. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1992, ISBN 0-19-820231-8 .
• Richard Bonney: Political Change in France under Richelieu and Mazarin, 1624–1661. Oxford / London / Glasgow 1978
• LWB Brockliss (eds.): Richelieu and his Age, Oxford 1992;
• Taylor Caldwell: The Arm and the Darkness. (German: All the power of this world. Heyne Verlag, Munich 1982)
• WF Church: Richelieu and Reason of State, Princeton 1972.
• JH Elliott: Richelieu and Olivares. Cambridge Studies in Early modern History. Princeton, 1983.
• Robert J. Knecht: Richelieu. London / New York 1991, ISBN 0-582-55710-0 .
• David Parrott: Richelieu's Army. War, Governance, and Society in France, 1624-1642, Cambridge 2001

Web links

Commons : Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal Richelieu  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Armand-Jean du Plessis, duc de Richelieu in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Armand-Jean du Plessis, duc de Richelieu  in the German Digital Library
• The original text of the will
• Catholic Encyclopedia - Armand-Jean du Plessis, Duke de Richelieu (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Roland Mousnier: L'Homme Rouge. Editions Robert Laffont, ISBN 978-2221065921
2. ↑ Uwe Schultz : Richelieu - The King's Cardinal. Verlag CH Beck , 2009, p. 26
3. ^ ^{A b c d e} Carl J. Burckhardt: Richelieu. Great power politics and death of the cardinal . tape 3 . Georg DW Callwey, Munich 1966, p. 249-255 .
4. ↑ On this in detail Krüssmann: Ernst von Mansfeld. Pp. 502, 523 ff., 526 ff., 536-539, 542 ff., 545, 547, 553 f., 573, 574 f. and 632 ff.
5. ^ Also on this in detail Krüssmann: Ernst von Mansfeld. Pp. 491–494 (League of Lyon), 534 ff., 538 f. and 542 ff.
6. ^ ^{A b} Christian Pantle: The Thirty Years War. When Germany was on fire . Propylaen Ullstein Buchverlage GmbH, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-549-07443-5 , p. 207 f., 212 .
7. ↑ Jean-Baptiste-Pierre Jullien de Courcelles : Dictionnaire historique et biographique des généraux français, depuis le onzième siècle jusqu'en 1821. Volume 3. Courcelles, Paris 1821, p. 46.
8. ^ Charles Gavard: Galeries historiques du Palais de Versailles. Volume 9. Imprimerie royale, Paris 1848, p. 328.
9. ^ Jean Chrétien Ferdinand Hoefer: Nouvelle biographie générale depuis les temps les plus reculés jusqu'à nos jours, avec les renseignements bibliographiques et l'indication des sources à consulter. Volume 44. Firmin Didot, Paris 1865, column 135.
10. ↑ Louis Batiffol: Autour de Richelieu - Sa fortune - Ses gardes et mousquetaires - La Sorbonne - Le chateau de Richelieu. Paris 1937. Quoted from: Les Gardes du Cardinal. In: Le monde de d'Artagnan
11. ↑ Richelieu's successor Jules Mazarin again set up a cardinal's guard in 1650, but only on foot. Instead of the tunic, she probably wore a red cap with Mazarin's coat of arms. In 1660 the cardinal left his 300-headed bodyguard to the king, who after Mazarin's death in 1661 incorporated them into the royal musketeers as the 2nd company, but did not mount them until 1663. Lit .: René Chartrand: French Musketeer 1622–1775. Osprey Publishing, Oxford 2013
12. ↑ Information on the history of the academy on the academy's official website. Retrieved May 1, 2012 (French). 
13. ^ Gerhard Geissler: European documents from five centuries. Esche, Leipzig 1939, p. 178.

predecessor	Office	successor
Nicolas de Neufville, seigneur de Villeroy	Foreign Minister of France November 30, 1616–24. April 1617	Pierre Brûlart

This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on September 14, 2005 .